Talk:Cult of the Vault locations (Borderlands 2)
How/when to trim the article? The article right now is surely lengthy. But to me it can be this way until all Vault symbols are found (not sure if that point was reached yet), then each map section could be moved to the map's own article (not sure if all maps alaready have their own article). Opinions? Also, if there's a way in wikia to automatically create the full CotV locations page from the organized pieces, it would be great. Categories maybe? I don't know much about wikia yet, just sharing my thoughts, maybe they're helpful :) Dipnlik (talk) 13:20, October 12, 2012 (UTC) :They've all been found already, it's just up to an admin as to how they wanna go aboutthe shortening or whatever. 10:27, October 15, 2012 (UTC) ::For starters, all the first person perspective additions can be nuked. We don't need any of that in a wiki article. eg. ::*Right before the Slaughter objective, run towards the big Slaughterhouse sign and look behind a nearby pillar. ::It could be... ::*On the side of a pillar rising from the upper floor in the furthest corner from the arena entrance. ::You'll find that when appropriate text replaces junk like, "If you look to your left you will see..." that articles will shed 10%-20% of worthless bloat. -- WarBlade (talk) 11:47, October 15, 2012 (UTC) ::: ::::First person is fine and often easier provided there is a proper reference point. I've tried to use some in this article and found them useless, (Ironically, IGN has pictures and a map reference but little in the way of text to help find the less obvious ones). We are not talking about walkthroughs here, so perspective doesn't matter provided it is useful. Trying to be clever to save a few words defeats the purpose of the wiki if a large portion of the readers can't use it. 15:21, October 23, 2012 (UTC) :So I've noticed that some symbol locations have become more detailed walkthrough than location (see Sanctuary, especially). This part of the wiki, IMO, is not the appropriate place for walkthroughs for a few reasons: :: A. I, personally, just want some help locating the symbol - some of them are pretty tough (Holy Spirits, anyone?) and I don't want to spend hours looking behind every container or searching every rooftop. I'll figure out how to get it on my own once I have an idea of where it is. :: B. If I need a walkthrough, I'll find a walkthrough. Having a detailed 'how-to' in this section of the wiki does me a disservice as player. Linking to a walkthrough is fine but don't force me to read one if I don't want one. Same for a video: Linking to one is good, making me watch it is not. :: C. The entries are really verbose now making it much harder to read them on my phone with the Game Guide app. :: D. There is usually more than one way to reach the symbol - who decides what route is 'best' and/or gets the write-up? : This position seems to be in line with the commentary above, so would it be a bad thing to write/edit the entries to be "Here's where the symbol is" instead of "Here's how to get the symbol"? AnonTech (talk) 01:39, August 20, 2013 (UTC) Ultimately there needs to be a map with points on each area showing the vault symbols and short descriptions of where they are located. There should be screenshots of hard to find and hard to describe locations as well for reference. Any and all of these techniques can be tackled one at a time from multiple contributors. EDIT: also short descriptions of techniques to get to hard to reach ones, not a walkthrough. 05:40, August 20, 2013 (UTC) Again, after seeing the amount of pics that can take up a page: There should be one picture for each area that has been altered to show all symbols (multiple player icons pointing to the symbols), a short description of where the vault symbols are and possibly a video for each map. 14:15, May 16, 2014 (UTC) Page Links It strikes me as a gross misuse of the Wiki to use location names to link to a YouTube video instead of the actual Wiki page. The self serving nature is only illustrated by the fact that every link on this page seems to go back to one single YouTube account. Winnersusedrugs (talk) 08:07, October 18, 2012 (UTC) :Correct. If you know of a page, or compilation page, that covers the topic, then please update the links. -- WarBlade (talk) 10:24, October 18, 2012 (UTC) :I find this page horribly useless now, I am a visual person and reading the descriptions of locations is fine but takes much longer for me, but It was much easier for me to just click the link name to go to the page of the youtube video. I don't see what is wrong with someone putting the effort and time into making helpful videos and then putting links to them - saved me a bunch of time instead of finding this page, then clicking the link to the location page and then finding the video. :: I have just as much authority on this subject as everyone else, but to me (and I think this is aligned with WarBlade's line of thought), the instructions should NOT take the player by the hand to show the symbol location, walkthrough-style, but give enough information for the player to be able to find them by themselves, sort-of-encyclopedia-style. Dipnlik (talk) 09:36, October 25, 2012 (UTC) :: This is absolutely fine for you, and I wish you luck in that. That doesn't mean everyone wants to do that, and indeed the vast majority of people who are looking this up are probably doing so because they're unable to find it. Look for hints instead. :: As for the Youtube Videos, couldn't we just add in a media section or something? Snowskeeper---Till Hell Freezes Over. (talk) 17:38, May 22, 2013 (UTC) :: But as a wiki, the overall format and design is like that of an encyclopedia; that's its intent. An entry should be the basic information, like locations, with a LINK to more details like a walkthrough or a video. That way, a player can get the level of information they want without having an entire data dump forced down their throat. AnonTech (talk) 01:45, August 20, 2013 (UTC) :: As a wiki, the format and design is whatever the founder and anyone he chose to listen to wants it to be. It doesn't have to be like an encyclopedia. Wikia provides a means of supplying information and nothing more. Snowskeeper---Till Hell Freezes Over. (talk) 02:31, August 20, 2013 (UTC) Third Wurmwater symbol I noticed the third WW symbol was not yet listed. I found said symbol in the bandit "fortress" just outside of the entrance to The Rustyards. Its on the wall of a "boathouse" on the outer perimeter directly south of the C.A.R. and directly west of the vending machine. (I have screencaps if needed). I am uncertain of the editing etiquette of a wiki, so if someone more comfortable with it wishes to add this information please be my guest. -- Ravenknight 10:29, November 2, 2012 (UTC) Southern Shelf Ned Machine On the first entry for the Southern Shelf, the guide lists the Ned machine as not showing up on the map. An update appears to have fixed this. 3rd Vault symbol in Mines of Avarice The 3rd Vault symbol in Mines of Avarice exists and this video proves it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZPvliJQpvE&t=1m55s (it's not mine, I did it without grenades). Even though I guess they'll fix it and reduce it to only find 2 Vault symbols but I have found all 3 and I have this challenge completed. Dudlajz1 (talk) 23:18, August 28, 2013 (UTC) Terramorphous Peak as Krieg I was wondering if it was possible to get both vault symbols as Krieg, due to his increased weight. I attempted it earlier with some non-psycho co-op partners and they got it easily, but (playing Krieg) I barely made it half as high up as they did. The one next to the elevator was no problem, obviously, but I'm wondering if I should give up trying to get that other or if it is, indeed, possible for our dark matter psycopath to reach it. Niphanos (talk) 14:20, April 10, 2014 (UTC) If you do decent experimentation and leave the data here, it can be noted on the main text that Krieg cannot get this challenge. I have not tried it. 16:11, April 19, 2014 (UTC) After trying (and getting beaten on by Masher tentacles) for nearly an hour, I can safely say that it is impossible to get the vault symbol as Krieg in the manner described in this article. The only other way I can think to get it is to try to grab it as you're falling out of the gate, but this is expensive and/or time consuming. I will attempt it next, and report my findings. Niphanos (talk) 08:46, April 21, 2014 (UTC) : Nope. Niphanos (talk) 16:16, April 22, 2014 (UTC) : Falling out of the gate definitely doesn't work (a friend and I did try that one). 18:21, April 22, 2014 (UTC) Edits for TPS reverted? What's the reason why my edits from a few hours ago were reverted? Was I supposed to create a new page for The Pre-Sequel's Cult of the Vault locations, or something? TapSiLogMACHINE (talk) 05:12, October 14, 2014 (UTC) :Read the box at the top of the page carefully. Please keep to the third person. As for Pre-Sequel content, this article is already big. There's no need to bloat it further. -- WarBlade (talk) 09:38, October 14, 2014 (UTC) :::I did write in third person. The only edits I did to the page was my addition of TPS symbols, not sure why other lines (which appear to be identical) show up highlighted when I compare the my latest edit to yours (the revert). Anyways, as for not bloating the page any further, I suggest that the page name should be renamed into "Cult of the Vault (Borderlands 2)" and make a new page for TPS named something like "Cult of the Vault (Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel)". How's that? TapSiLogMACHINE (talk) 15:52, October 14, 2014 (UTC) Conversion to disambiguation page OK. That was kinda weird. Freaked me out when I saw the comment I left was added to this talk page. Took me a while to figure out the cult of the vault page was redirected here. So, I'll go ahead and leave my original (edited) message here anyways: :I'd like to propose converting this the Cult of the Vault page to a disambig page and directly linking from the location articles to the cult of the vault pages for the location's respective game. I'd be happy to make the changes to the articles with my bot account (I'd need a bot flag first. Do you guys use AWB whitelist?). Even if we keep this as more of an overview of cult of the vault symbols, rather than a disambig page, I still feel forcing the reader to go through two links to find the content needs to be corrected, and the links should point to the respective game articles, not here. Let me know how you feel, and like I said, I'd be happy to run the bot to make the changes. The Gunny ' 20:43, December 4, 2014 (UTC) ::The Cult of the Vault page already serves the purpose of a disambiguation page. It just has a generic description of the challenge as well. Readers are not being forced through two links - editors can update articles to link to the appropriate destination. What we really ''should be doing is making a challenge page for each area, eg. '''Cult of the Vault (Concordia) and so on. Then we can finally obliterate these horrendous "Cult of the Vault locations" pages, and put the images somewhere useful. -- WarBlade (talk) 20:59, December 4, 2014 (UTC) :::Good point. I'll add creating those pages to the list for after I get done with the rest of the side missions. As I've said, I'm not much of a writer, but I can create the pages as stubs at least with basic info and the writers can come in after and clean them up/fill them out. If you're not opposed to linking the location articles directly to the cult of the vault page for each specific game, I'd be happy to to that. Grant my bot account (User:Gunnybot) a bot flag and have it added to the AWB white list page and I'll run it down the location cats and change the links. The Gunny ''' 21:40, December 4, 2014 (UTC) COTV Rewrite Project I hope no one minds if I restart the discussion, because I really don't understand the endless argument about this entry while nothing gets done about it (and every attempt at change is instantly reverted). I am a professional documentation writer and I've written lengthy guides and docs for a number of games. A few hundred hours into BL2, one of my goals is to complete the COTV quest, and I use this page frequently. I'd like to contribute by leading the "cleanup" - but I can't do that unless the goals and ground rules are clear. '''WarBlade, since you are the one sitting on this page and reverting nearly every change, I think it falls to you to be clear about what you want to see here. Here's my observations and thoughts: #While the listing seems to be complete, many of the entries are so badly and murkily written that they aren't much better than "southwest corner of the map." I've tried to rewrite a couple of them - not changing the content but clarifying what's said - only to have the changes reverted. I don't think this advances the effort. #The argument seems to be torn between an absolutely minimal listing, more clues than directions, and longer walkthrough/how-to entries. I see a place for both. (And, frankly, while anyone is free to make WT videos and link them here, I kinda hate videos when a clear sentence or two contains just as much information.) Maybe there's a middle ground here? #The style demand that there be no second-person references needs to be relaxed a little for this page. Its purpose is to direct "YOU" how to achieve a goal; bending over backwards to write a sentence that does not even use second-person verb tenses produces governmental-level mumbo-jumbo. So let me suggest this: #Allow rewrites of each entry that clarify the existing instructions, try to keep the entry as short as possible, and use second-person form only when absolutely necessary to make an instruction clear. #Consider a two-part structure for each entry: the shortest possible location description in open text, and a longer not-quite-walkthrough description (of how to get on a roof, a ledge, around a long path, etc.) in spoiler. Don't need help? Don't look at the page. Don't want a complete spoil? Don't look at the spoiler. Can't figure out how to get to the stupid one up on the wall under Washburne Refinery? Read the spoiler. Happy to put in the effort to clean up this page, end the arguing and make it useful to as many players as possible... but I need those guidelines before wasting any more time on insta-reverts! NitroPress (talk) 17:14, May 21, 2015 (UTC) :I am all for making the directions more verbose. I've been adding screenshots as I go along, but they are impossible to place in-line with such short directions/descriptions for some. My suggestion would be to turn this into a table list, instead of a simple list. This would allow for the image to go along with the description, making it easier to understand. The only downside, is having a table is not mobile friendly at all. Perhaps someone can add a "hide-mobile" css to hide the images on mobile, or if there is some wiki plugin to make them clickable/thumbnail links instead for mobile. :- Mroosa (talk) 19:04, May 21, 2015 (UTC) :Maybe I'm just old and proud of my ability to reed gud, but I don't see that videos or even screenshots add much to the page. I mean, it's a Vault Symbol - the same carved symbol in every instance. If you're told where to look (generally or in very specific terms) you're not going to miss it. I don't object to the screen shots and would add my own as needed if that's considered essential, but... "It's on the rear of the building you were just told where to find" seems to pretty much eliminate the need for a shot of the rear of the building. IMHO. :- NitroPress (talk) 19:26, May 21, 2015 (UTC) :: I used this as my guide to find most of the symbols, and it was not at all clear (even the more verbose examples), hence why I included the screenshots. :: - Mroosa (talk) 19:48, May 21, 2015 (UTC) :::Mroosa's got the right idea, and a map image is something I've often thought would be ideal. :::As for some of the other suggestions? "The style demand that there be no second-person references needs to be relaxed a little for this page. Its purpose is to direct "YOU" how to achieve a goal" At this point I find myself encountering someone who has misread this entire wiki. The content should not be directed at "You". Even though we can assume that most of the readers will be players, the style of the wiki was adapted to fit the idea that the reader could be anyone, player and non-player alike, a long time ago. So occasionally we might refer to "players" if we need to, but most of the time there is actually no need to refer to anyone at all. :::With regard to the vault symbols, it became apparent a while back that it is quite often simplest to just state where things are and people can then navigate there themselves. I mean that's how we give driving directions for friends to reach our houses for the first time, right? Just give an address. We don't start with, "Get into your car, start your car, exit your driveway..." and this is exactly the kind of nonsense that some contributors keep trying to publish here. Or to put it into a gaming perspective, imagine a player on a PC trying to find something, pausing the game, minimising it to view this wiki on a web browser, going back into the game, back and forth, back and forth, while trying to read through, "turn left, jump over the thing, follow the wall to the right..." Meanwhile there was always the option to upload a map with vault symbol locations marked on it, and an accompanying concise description. -- WarBlade (talk) 22:24, May 21, 2015 (UTC) :::::Okay. well, I disagree on several points, especially the idea that "you" is a bad word in a player wiki. Just stating a location is also insufficient in many cases; a lot of these symbols are in locations very difficult to reach without a hint or two. It's certainly part of the game, and the fun, and the challenge to figure these things out, but if help with these challenges is "horrendous," then isn't the whole wiki just a lame cheat for players not willing to figure everything out for themselves? As for being able to pause and check ANY content in the wiki while playing, it's not too big a hassle if you have multiple monitors or something like a tablet or phone, which many of us do - you again might as well be questioning the usefulness of the whole wiki if you think checking these hints is a big hurdle during play. I don't see how a map would be any easier to access, either. So, okay, your wiki, your rules. I can't see any way to be useful here within these restrictions, which have obviously been argued over for a long time. After ten years of writing highly-regarded game docs, I have to say I'm a little... puzzled at the situation here. But I'll go back to playing and perhaps see some of you around Pandora. NitroPress (talk) 22:49, May 21, 2015 (UTC)